


Immaculate

by TheMulletWhisperer



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Halloween, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Trauma, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 17:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMulletWhisperer/pseuds/TheMulletWhisperer
Summary: Perception is not always reality. Minds bend, break, shatter, and none are the wiser until it affects them.





	Immaculate

**Author's Note:**

> Yay a halloween story get ready for spooks and scares from this... uh
> 
> yea.
> 
> Thanks to @DefaultJane for beta-reading this!

Shepard stepped out of the shuttle, the wet grass and mud of the planet’s surface squelching sickeningly under her boots. All around her was an oppressive silence, the storm that had kept her from the surface before having passed only hours ago, she now stood alone under the night sky of Aires-92. 

The planet was a colony world that had gone dark months ago, though the absence of its transmissions were only realized when the garrison commander failed his annual check-in. Three Alliance teams, one special operations, all of them gone. Orbital scans picked up no signs of life, no signs of a conflict, no signs of recent activity, save for the teams sent to investigate. Now, Hackett was sending in the best he had to offer. Tali, Liara, and Garrus had all failed to report back, so Jane took it on her shoulders to go in personally.

The first thing she noticed was the total lack of sound. Usually there was some sort of ambience to a planet, distant insects buzzing, the howls of alien creatures, the whistling of the wind on the open plain, but none of that was present. Even her onboard instruments couldn’t pick up anything. For miles there was only empty grassland, eventually bookended by hills that sheltered the valley from the harsher weather of the planet. 

As she proceeded towards the colony in the near-distance, the landscape dotted with abandoned shuttles and ground vehicles from the missing teams, Shepard called back to the vids she’d seen of the colony when it was first established. Everything was a near-perfect mirror image of that first triumphant transmission, the lights casting a glow over the buildings and roads, the ground damp with the rain of a recently-passed storm, the stars shining in the night sky. And yet, everything felt lively in the vids. Now it was empty, cold and lifeless in all the wrong ways. 

Shepard advanced into the light of the streetlamps, keen eyes sweeping the desolate streets and buildings. Every time she took a step her unease grew. The silence felt as if it were meant to be broken by something, but nothing ever did. The fluorescent lights in the homes all glowed brightly, illuminating the immaculate interiors. Everything was right where it should be. They were clearly lived in, personal effects lining the cabinets and shelves in every one of them, pots on the stoves and food in the pantries. Yet nobody was inside. It all looked as if the colonists and soldiers alike had simply gotten up and left. 

The largest building in the town was the garrison. Well-defended, well-stocked, if anyone were still alive here, it would be in that building. Jane flicked on her helmet light as she approached it out of sheer habit rather than necessity, the warm glow of the lamps drowning out what little light her helmet provided. 

As she approached the door, a feeling of paranoia grew as she scanned the area, though she buried it quickly. Everything seemed wrong, though she couldn’t place her finger on why. There never seemed to be any danger, there was no structural damage, no blood, no bullet holes or spent thermal clips. There was no fight, no struggle, no… no nothing.

Shepard reached out and slid the door to the garrison open, half expecting to find pirates holding everyone hostage, or Reapers putting the colonists on spikes. Nonetheless, whatever she was expecting paled in comparison to the growing dread as she laid eyes on yet another perfectly empty room. Same as the homes, same as the town. 

A soft clatter nearly made her jump out of her skin as she whipped around to face whatever had caused it. Something out of sight, behind a locked door. 

Rifle in one hand and omni-tool in the other, Jane approached the door and held the tool’s interface over the door’s, watching the decryptor spin and taking comfort in the soft beeping that broke the deafening silence, even for a moment.

The door slid open and she stepped in immediately, swinging her rifle and vision around the room with the cold precision of a trained soldier. Once again, her expectations were dashed as she was met with an empty room, but something was off about this one. It looked far warmer than the others, the fluorescent bulbs supplanted by a soft, yellow light. A made bed was tucked in the corner, the quilt looking to have been hand-crafted, with a rug pinned underneath the plasteel legs.

Something flickered in the corner of her eye and she snapped her vision towards whatever had caused it. There was some sort of light from beneath an askew corner of the rug. Cautiously, she approached and kicked the fabric back, peering down into what looked to be a maintenance tunnel. 

Another glance around the room and a check at her ammo and supplies, she dropped down into it, forced to crouch in the confined space. 

LED lights lined the access tunnel, spaced out a few inches from one-another. And yet, she could barely see three feet into the tunnel. Reaching up once again to flick her helmet light on, she peered deeper into the darkness, and what she saw sent her reeling.

A face, appeared for a split-second in the dark before retreating, a face that she couldn’t get a good look at before she fired her rifle wildly in its direction. Yet again, however, it seemed it was either a figment of her imagination or a trick of the eyes, as the bullets simply lodged harmlessly in the walls of the access corridor.

Nonetheless, her instincts told her to take it slow and be ready for anything. Moving at a crawl, she made certain to keep her eyes squared directly ahead of her, only pausing to check behind her back for brief moments.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d spent in the tunnel, but eventually she saw an end, a bright light illuminating what looked to be a laboratory. Hurriedly, she crawled toward it, dropping out of the tunnel and pushing up to her feet. 

And at that moment, the mystery only deepened.

Hundreds of body bags lined the vast chamber, whose only exit seemed to be the access corridor. Unlike the rest of the colony, the lab was filthy, the walls covered in dry blood and dirt. What most set her off-balance though was her squad, three in a row of several Alliance soldiers, their arms crossed over their chests and their legs snapped together in a stance of attention, lashed to upright lab tables. They looked at peace, no longer breathing, no longer alive. No matter how hard she tried, Jane couldn’t feel sorry for them, her old friends that she saw dead.

Dead… they were dead for a long time, there. They insisted they were okay, the Reapers were gone. Shepard knew that wasn’t true though. She knew it had to be indoctrination, the Reapers were winning. She saw the destruction of the Citadel firsthand, she barely survived. And now the Reapers had enslaved the galaxy. She was the only one left. Whatever sacrifices needed to be made, she’d make them now.

With a sigh, she shook her head and produced her scalpel from her coat pocket, approaching Garrus’ body and removing a sample of tissue from his neck, then the same from Tali. She stopped for a moment, examining the Quarian. She’d never realized that Tali was the first one she’d seen without the mask, although there wasn’t much face left anymore. She could consult her pictures.

Carefully, she placed the samples into one of several glass containers and sealed it tightly, placing it alongside the others for testing. In one of her wrinkled, spotted hands, she held a set of dog tags, others who’d fallen in the line of duty.

It was her job to cure this indoctrination, though her hair was grayed and her eyesight dimmed, she refused to give up. One day, she’d justify the sacrifices she had to make. She approached what had once been Liara, brushing the back of her hand along the dry, sunken flesh of her corpse’s face. 

“I’m sorry, love,” Shepard rasped, “I have to stop the Reapers.”


End file.
